How the US Taxpayer Funded “Privatized” Space Flights

 ...Bezos’s New Shepherd suborbital flight recreated the historic 1961 flight of America’s first astronaut Alan Shepherd. Back then the U.S. corporate tax rate was 48 percent. If Amazon had paid that same rate on its income in the last three years, the company would have paid an additional $19.5 billion in U.S. income taxes.

Amazon is not alone in not paying its fair share in federal taxes. Back in 1961, corporate income taxes comprised 22.1 percent of the federal government’s revenue. Last year, corporations paid just 6.6 percent of Uncle Sam’s bills, despite U.S. corporations being far more profitable than when Alan Shepherd flew aboard Freedom 7.

Bezos claims to have invested about $7.5 billion in Blue Origin to date. U.S. taxpayers have invested many times that amount in Amazon through sales tax loopholes, property tax subsidies, and federal tax avoidance schemes. It is we, the American taxpayers, along with Amazon’s hard-working, underpaid workers, that made this billionaire’s 10-minute thrill ride possible.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/28/how-the-us-taxpayer-funded-privatized-space-flights/

Nader:

...modern business. It’s about massive profit margins, minimum tax payment, automated workplaces, government-funded basic research, and government guarantees against risks and losses.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/27/a-cunning-extraterrestrial-profiteer/